The Society of Saint Gregory the Great is a membership association of Catholic laity formed in 2008 to promote divine worship in accordance with the Supreme Magisterium of the Church. The Society has its own schola cantorum, and regularly sponsors presentations and workshops on the Sacred Liturgy, Gregorian chant, and sacred polyphony.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Ascension Thursday Sunday?

The liturgical celebration of Ascension by the Latin Church has become a
little confused in recent years.

In the post-Conciliar calendar used with the Novus Ordo editions of
the Missale Romanum for this coming Sunday we ought - in my
opinion – to be observing the 7th Sunday of Easter. Ascension Thursday
should fall, appropriately, on Thursday.

However, by the same logical
that dislocated Epiphany (“Twelfth Night”) from its proper place twelve days,
appropriately, after Christmas, some years ago the Holy See allowed bishops to
transfer the celebration of Ascension Thursday to the following Sunday.

I call this liturgical caper “Ascension Thursday Sunday”.

Those who are participating at Holy Mass with the 1962MR avoid all
this. Ascension Thursday is, logically, on Thursday.

Since we should, when examining issues, pay attention to cult,
code and creed, and since we have looked at the theological point
of the liturgical observance of the Ascension (creed and cult) let’s look also
at some law (code).

In the 1983 Code of Canon Law, can. 1246, Ascension Thursday is
indicated as one of the few Holy Days of Obligation.

Nota bene: There are some dioceses where Ascension Thursday has not
been transferred....

The bishops who did transfer the feast to Sunday were, I am sure, hoping to
expose more people to the mystery of the Ascension of the Lord. Probably
included in that calculation was also the notion that it is tooo
haaard for people to go to Mass also on Thursday. “Mass twice in
a week? Tooo haaard!”